Immunisation

Immunisation 

I wanted to write this post after I read an article about the importance of immunisation. 

https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/19/mother-polio-importance-immunization/?utm_campaign=rss

I suppose it rang a bell because I had polio when I was a baby. It left me with a paralysed right leg and general weakness down my right side (which nobody realised until I got post-polio syndrome and lost the use of my right hand). 

I was puzzled about finding a photograph to symbolise my problems then I thought of my saddle stool. You see, with my right leg being paralysed and skinny, my left leg compensated and is very muscular. This includes my buttocks which means that sitting on an ordinary chair is very stressful and even painful because of having to balance. The saddle stool is the only really comfortable seat in the house. 

So it lives in front of my easel so that I can sit and paint comfortably. 

To get back to immunisation, I have often heard children ask their mothers “why does that lady walk funny?” and their mothers commonly hush them and rush them away as if walking funny was shameful. Whenever I had a chance to interrupt the hushing, I would explain to the child that it was because I caught a nasty disease that they wouldn’t catch because scientists had discovered a way of immunising against it, and they should be happy to go and have injections to keep from catching nasty illnesses. 

I am so happy about the campaign to eradicate polio all over the world. There’s still polio in places where there is war going on and people are risking their lives to take the polio vaccine to these places. 

When I was growing up there was no immunisation against illnesses like measles, rubella, mumps or chicken pox, so I had to suffer through them and I was lucky not to have bad side effects from them. 

I remember the day when my whole class at school came down with rubella and we were comparing our rashes. That must be so infectious for us all to get it the same day. I hope that none of us got anywhere near a pregnant woman. 

When I was growing up, there was immunisation against diphtheria which is another frequently fatal disease that immunisation has pretty well eradicated. My mother caught that and was hospitalised when she was a teenager. She made sure that I had the injections against that, I promise you!

Saddle Stool

Saddle Stool

When I want to concentrate on painting at my easel, the most important thing is what I am sitting on. 

As I am disabled, (I had polio when I was a baby giving me paralysis in my right leg) my gluteus maximus on my left is much bigger than the one on my right. This means that I am lopsided when I sit. Sitting can be very painful, giving me, not backache, but waist ache. So I buy a lot of working chairs, in hopes of finding a comfortable one. My last purchase was a lovely chair but a disaster for me to sit on. I kept tipping sideways and my waist and leg ached with the effort of trying to stay vertical. 

I have been thinking about getting a saddle stool for a long time and yesterday this noble stool arrived (photo above). So far remaining vertical is no problem at all. Getting on it can be awkward because of the hump at the front. Does one call it a pommel on a stool? But I am getting the hang of it and once I am in front of the easel I feel secure and can concentrate on painting and not pain.

The cats are giving the saddle stool dirty looks. It isn’t good for curling up and sleeping. 

I have returned to the painting of Arthur. I am improving four of my portraits in oils on canvas to put into the Art in the Hills exhibition in Dufton Village Hall later this month. The portrait part of the photo has got bleached out by the sunshine so you can’t see what alterations I have made, but I have added a mixture of burnt umber and prussian blue into the shadows and Arthur’s shirt has come to life. I am so pleased with it that I am going to add some prussian blue to the shadows on his face. 

Because the exhibition is coming up soon, I have bought some quick drying mediums. I have 3 different makes to try. First I bought Winsor and Newton Artisan fast drying medium but I didn’t like the smell. So I have bought bottles of Holbein Duo Aqua quick drying liquid, which doesn’t have a smell, and Royal Talens Cobra quick drying medium. I haven’t opened the Cobra one yet because I read that it causes yellowing and also I prefer the consistency of the Duo Aqua paints so it is natural for me to use their medium first. 

You may well prefer the Cobra paints if you come from painting in traditional oil paints. I started by working in dry pastel and the Duo Aqua paints have a drier consistency. I even blend them with my fingers on the canvas sometimes as I would in pastel. 

The reason why I stopped painting in pastel is that I got post polio syndrome and couldn’t grip my pastels. Post polio syndrome is when bits of me that had been working (in this case my right hand) stopped working. I have recovered to the point where I can hold pencils and paintbrushes, and I have tried pastel pencils which have improved a lot since the days when I painted exclusively in pastel, but pastels have to be framed and framing is expensive. Oil on canvas doesn’t need to be framed, which is an important consideration when painting for an exhibition.